No Country for Women - Humanism, Secularism, Feminism

Taslima Nasreen

Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Taslima Nasreen was born in Bangladesh. She started writing when she was 13. Her writings won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India in 1992. Taslima won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France, Le Prix de l' Edit de Nantes from the city of Nantes, France, Academy prize from the Royal Academy of arts, science and literature from Belgium. She is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy for Humanism,USA. She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., IBKA award, Germany,and Feminist Press Award, USA . She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. She received the Medal of honor of Lyon. She got honorary citizenship from Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Metz, Thionville, Esch etc. Taslima was awarded the Condorcet-Aron Prize at the “Parliament of the French Community of Belgium” in Brussels and Ananda literary award again in 2000.

Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris and Paris Diderot University in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar at Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009.

Taslima has written 40 books in Bengali, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in thirty different languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideas she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

Share this:

Let’s see the faces of our ancestors. We humans look like our ancestors. Aren’t we? I am not particularly fond of human species. But I am proud of some enlightened humans, among them are the scientists who tell us the truth about our universe and our evolution. Nothing is more beautiful and fascinating than the truth.
I hope science will free the minds of all humans from the bondage of superstition and ignorance.

Share this:

Researchers said, “Sediba shows a strange mix of primitive australopithecine traits and derived Homo traits — face and anterior dentition like Homo, shape of the cranium like Homo, other parts of the face and size of the cranium like an australopithecine, arms like an australopithecine, pelvis and lower limbs like Homo and feet and ankles like an australopithecine!”

After having all the evidences of evolution, I wonder how billions of people still continue believing in funny Adam and Eve story!

First, paleontologists spread the word that modern birds are actually living dinosaurs. Then came the news from China that some dinosaurs and related reptiles long ago seemed to be marvelous four-winged creatures, seemingly on standby at some runway for takeoff in flight as early birds.

Birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs. They gradually lost feathers on their feet and then their legs, and today, modern birds have wings on their arms only. Will it be possible for any living beings to fly without wings in some millions of years? Sometimes I fly in my dreams. I imagine my arms as wings.

Share this:

It is nice to see camels roam freely. It is not nice to see they still pull ploughs, turn waterwheels and transport tons of heavy goods along desert routes. Domesticated camels have been exploited by humans for thousands of years. They are forced to become slaves of humans. I wish I could let them free. They have the right to roam wherever they want.

Share this:

It is Chromodoris reticulata. It loses but re-grows and re-uses its penis. You don’t believe me? Please read it.

The little sea slugs are “simultaneous hermaphrodites”, they have both male and female sexual organs and can use them both at the same time.

Sea slugs are not the only animal who lose their penis. Orb weaver spiders also lose their penis after sex. They lose penis, but it grows again. Why do they have to lose penis if it has to regrow? A very valid question. Scientists say:

‘In the first act of copulation the penis may be used to remove any sperm left by any competitors that its partner has mated with.
With the first penis and the rival sperm then abandoned – the second penis can be used to inject the sea slug with another dose of its own sperm, ensuring that their genes are the ones that are passed on.’

What if humans had disposable penis? Most likely men will not have disposable penis until women seriously sleep around. How much I wish to see men’s disposable penis!